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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29828133">Domestic Affairs</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairychangeling/pseuds/fairychangeling'>fairychangeling</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ableist Language, Abusive Myra Kaspbrak, Abusive Relationships, Eddie Kaspbrak Gets Divorced, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Not Myra Kaspbrak Friendly, Original Character(s), POV Outsider, POV Third Person Limited, Unreliable Narrator</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:47:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,157</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29828133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairychangeling/pseuds/fairychangeling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Myra Kaspbrak worked part time. She only came in on Monday, Wednesday and in the afternoon on Thursday. </p><p>That was because Myra’s husband was sick. </p><p>**</p><p>Eddie and Myra's marriage and divorce as seen through the eyes of Myra's colleague.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>317</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Domestic Affairs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story sprang from the following thought I posted on my tumblr:</p><p>"Something from the POV of a third-party who knows Myra casually through work and who is sympathetic when Myra mentions her divorce because they know only the version of the marriage that Myra has told them about, and who thinks Eddie is having a mid-life crisis and being a jackass, but who starts to realise Myra is an unreliable narrator of her own life and that Eddie is a victim, not a perpetrator"</p><p>Please be aware this story includes a character being publicly outed as revenge, emotional abuse, casual ableism and implied Munchausen by proxy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Carol Franklin worked Monday to Friday at Callaghan Investments.</p><p>Myra Kaspbrak worked part time. She only came in on Monday, Wednesday and in the afternoon on Thursday. </p><p>Carol knew that was because Myra’s husband was sick. </p><p>Myra had told her during her first week. She’d pulled out her phone and shown Carol pictures of a smartly dressed man with a gaunt, hollow face and big, frightened eyes. </p><p>His lungs were weak, he had asthma and any number of life threatening allergies. Myra had spoken proudly of how she prepared meals for him to keep him from inadvertently poisoning himself. </p><p>His name was Eddie.</p><p>Carol had privately thought that was a rather childish name.</p><p>Still, Myra clearly loved him. </p><p>She had a photograph of him on her desk and her lockscreen was a picture of him. </p><p>Carol’s lockscreen was a picture of her cat, Sargent Tubbs, and she regarded him as far better looking than Eddie Kaspbrak, but she understood the desire to be able to look at someone you loved every time you glanced at your phone. </p><p>Carol wasn’t the marrying type. She wasn’t a lesbian, not that she thought there was anything wrong with being a lesbian, she was just the sort of woman who preferred her own company. She had good friends, close family in the form of her brother and sister-in-law and the scores of nephews and nieces they’d given her, she had her cat and she had more than one vibrator. Carol Franklin’s life was rich and full in ways that didn’t start or end with a relationship, so she couldn’t quite understand Myra Kaspbrak’s desire to saddle herself to a sickly, timid, mouse of a man. </p><p>She respected Myra for it. Carol couldn’t have done it. </p><p>That was part of the reason she’d never wanted to marry. The idea of taking care of another person had never sat well with her. She was not nurturing or maternal. </p><p>Myra was however and Carol appreciated that. </p><p>She also appreciated that Myra caught the typos in her reports. </p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>Carol had been working with Myra for a little under three years when The Event happened.</p><p>That was the only way Carol could think of it. </p><p>One week everything was fine, then the next week it wasn’t and The Event was the reason why. </p><p>Myra didn’t come into the office one Monday. </p><p>That was not terribly unusual. Carol had learned in their time together that Myra often had to take days off. She needed to take Eddie to his doctor’s appointments. Sometimes she had to take him to hospital. Eddie was delicate. </p><p>It had surprised Carol to learn that Eddie worked. She’d assumed with how ill he was, he would have been at home, but apparently he had some nice, tidy office job with numbers somewhere in the middle of the city. His job certainly hadn’t surprised her. </p><p>Privately, Carol thought Eddie seemed like the type of man who would really enjoy a good spreadsheet. It might be the only thing that ever got his blood pumping. </p><p>She and Myra weren’t the sort of friends who discussed anything as vulgar as sex; Myra was too prim and proper, while Carol had real friends she would more than happily divulge the secrets of her sex toy draw to; yet all the same Carol knew Eddie wasn’t interested in sex. </p><p>One of the drugs he was taking caused erectile dysfunction. Myra had mentioned it, but in the way a hospital nurse might mention it, when discussing the side effects of Eddie’s latest round of treatments. </p><p>Carol, listening sympathetically, had mentioned Sargent Tubbs had needed to eat a special brand of cat food after a urinary tract infection. </p><p>The point was that Carol didn’t think it very strange when Myra took Monday off, but then she also missed Wednesday, and Thursday, and the next Monday. </p><p>Carol, on her lunch break, scanned the obituaries for Eddie Kaspbrak’s name. </p><p>It would be just like Myra’s husband to die. </p><p>Myra was back in the office that Wednesday and Carol didn’t have to ask her what had happened. Myra came up to her desk, holding her coffee mug in trembling hands, and asked Carol if she wanted something from the break room. Carol, of course, said yes and followed her.</p><p>It was in the break room of Callaghan Investments that Carol learned about The Event. </p><p>“He ran away,” Myra said tearfully. “He got a phone call from some old friend I’ve never heard of, packed a suitcase and left!”</p><p>Carol made appropriately sympathetic noises but stopped herself short of asking if Myra had thought to put up posters offering a reward for his safe return. </p><p>“And then he calls me three days later, Carol! He calls me from a hospital in Maine! Where apparently he grew up?” </p><p>“I thought you said he grew up in New York,” Carol said, stirring her tea.</p><p>Myra’s face was venomous. “That’s what he told me! Who lies about growing up in Maine?” </p><p>Eddie Kaspbrak did apparently. </p><p>“Why was he in hospital?” Carol asked. </p><p>“He was in some freak car accident. He was impaled! And his awful friends pulled him off whatever impaled him and drove him to the hospital! He could have bled to death because of them!”</p><p>“How horrible,” Carol said, shuddering at the thought. </p><p>“So I’ve been in Maine,” Myra said, taking a sip of her coffee.</p><p>Carol nodded. Of course that’s where Myra would have been. She must have been going out of her mind with worry until Eddie called her. </p><p>“Is Eddie home now?” she asked. </p><p>“Yes, they discharged him yesterday. I drove him home and he’s resting now.” </p><p>“Did he tell you why he went to Maine? I know you said a friend called.”</p><p>Myra’s face darkened. </p><p>“He said he had to go, that he made a promise to someone, but he won’t tell me what that promise was.” </p><p>“Men are like that,” Carol said, not putting too much thought behind her words. </p><p>She didn’t have enough experience with men to classify them all in such a broad, sweeping statement. She’d dated a little in her college years, but more for the thrill of sex with another human being than any desire to get to know them personally. </p><p>However, she’d heard people say that kind of thing in movies or on TV. It seemed to be the right thing to say. </p><p>Myra hummed in agreement. </p><p>“You really are a marvel, Myra. He doesn’t deserve you,” Carol said, placing a comforting hand on her arm.</p><p>“I know,” Myra laughed. “I told him that! I told him if he does something like this again, I won’t stand for it.”</p><p>“Good for you,” Carol said. </p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>For the next two weeks things returned to normal and Carol breathed a sigh of relief. </p><p>She’d been waiting for Eddie to be rushed to hospital having torn his stitches or developed a rare blood disease, but, if he’d done either of those things, he’d done them on a day when Myra wasn’t working. </p><p>For two weeks the office ran smoothly.</p><p>On her Thursday afternoon at the end of the two weeks, Myra seemed distracted. Her face was a blotchy pink. She might have been crying. </p><p>Carol offered her a tissue from the box she kept on her desk. </p><p>“I think Eddie is having an affair!” Myra announced then blew her nose loudly. </p><p>“I thought he couldn’t get it up,” Carol said, more bluntly than she intended to. </p><p>Myra sniffed haughty. “An emotional affair.”</p><p>Carol felt that affairs needed to involve some sort of sexual contact, but as she had never been married, she accepted Myra might know more than her in this circumstance. </p><p>“Why?” she asked.</p><p>“He’s always on his phone. He’s texting and calling those awful people he saw in Maine.”</p><p>Myra’s lower lip wobbled.</p><p>“One of them is a girl!”</p><p>She punched a few keys on her phone, then thrust the search results she’d pulled up into Carol’s face. </p><p>“Oh,” Carol said. </p><p>The woman smiling up at her from the image search was Beverly Marsh. </p><p>Carol owned a jacket from her Fall 2015 collection. She’d brought it as a Christmas present to herself. It was the most expensive piece of clothing she owned, a truly resplendent turquoise and gold thing she wore to a New Years Eve party. She’d got tipsy on good champagne and danced the night away. </p><p>“Your husband is friends with Beverly Marsh?” she asked, eyebrows drawing together in confusion as she tried to mesh the two of them together and failed.</p><p>Beverly Marsh was getting a divorce, but it was impossible to imagine someone so glamorous and lively leaving her husband for someone like Eddie Kaspbrak. </p><p>Why would Beverly Marsh want a short asthmatic who was allergic to cashew nuts? She could have any man she wanted. </p><p>Myra let out another wet sob. “He’s going to leave me! I know he will! I’m not pretty like her.”</p><p>“Nonsense,” Carol said smoothly. “He’d be a fool. You’re twice the woman she is, Myra. He wouldn’t know what to do without you.”</p><p>Myra dabbed at her eyes with the tissue. </p><p>“You’re right, Carol. I know you’re right,” she said. “He’d be lost without me. I’ll tell him that when I get home.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>**</p><p><br/>
Again they settled back into their routine. </p><p>Carol heard a lot about Eddie’s new friends and she agreed with Myra that they were bad news, but she also agreed with Myra that the filing system needed to be changed. It was one of the many topics of conversation that got them through the day. </p><p>It was surprising that someone as dull and ordinary as Eddie could have such famous and exciting friends, but Carol supposed you never knew how people would grow up. They must have been nice children to take pity on such a sickly small thing as Eddie and let him pal around with them when he felt up to it. He must have almost felt like a normal boy. </p><p>She’d hoped that Myra might get her a signed copy of Bill Denbrough’s next book. </p><p>Myra did offer her tickets to Richie Tozier’s New York show but Carol declined those. </p><p>If she wanted to sit around a group of men who’d heckle her for being the only woman in the room, just to hear sexist jokes told by a man who needed a shave, she’d go up to the top floor and sit in on one of the meetings. </p><p>Myra had, with a long suffering sigh, told her Richie had delivered the tickets to the house himself. </p><p>“He’s just as awful as you would think,” she said. “He’s the worst of all of them, so of course Eddie-Bear likes him best!” </p><p>Carol thought pet names were sophomoric. She thought Myra’s pet name for her husband was excruciatingly infantile, but she also knew it wasn’t her place to comment on it. </p><p>“Does Eddie want to go to his show?” Carol asked. </p><p>She didn’t think Eddie could like Richie Tozier that much if he was asking Myra to give the tickets away. </p><p>“He’s still too weak to go out,” Myra said. </p><p>Carol nodded. Eddie’s recovery was the subject of any number of afternoon coffees. </p><p>“Maybe you could sell them to one of the guys from upstairs?” she suggested instead. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>**</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>It was Wednesday evening when Eddie told Myra he was leaving her. </p><p>Carol found out on Thursday afternoon. </p><p>“He says he’s gay,” Myra spat the words out as if they offended her. </p><p>Carol raised an eyebrow. </p><p>Maybe Eddie’s erectile dysfunction hadn’t been caused by his pills at all. </p><p>“I know!” Myra shrieked, reading something in Carol’s expression that she hadn’t intended. “He’s wasted the best years of my life!”</p><p>Carol frowned. </p><p>She didn’t agree that Myra’s best years were behind her. She didn’t agree with the idea that people had ‘best’ years. Each new year was a delight as far as Carol was concerned, holding new challenges and new surprises. </p><p>Besides, she was older than Myra. She felt that she was being insulted by implication. </p><p>“I can’t believe he would do this to me,” Myra continued, seemingly unaware of Carol’s silence. “I’ve done everything for him! And he lied to me! He ruined my life!”</p><p>Carol offered the tissues from her desk. </p><p>“He shouldn’t have lied to you, but he can’t help being gay,” she said, trying to sound reasonable. </p><p>Myra snatched a tissue. “Yes he can!”</p><p>“Maybe you should take some time off?” Carol suggested. “Myra, you should take some time for yourself.”</p><p>“If he thinks I’m just going to let him walk out on me after everything I’ve done for him,” Myra muttered. </p><p>“Well, of course,” Carol agreed. “He’ll owe you alimony. Did you have a prenup?” </p><p>Myra looked up at her and Carol realised for the first time in their conversation that there were no tears in her eyes. She’d heard Myra sobbing. She’d heard her wailing. Her face was flushed an unattractive shade of pink, but she wasn’t crying. </p><p>Carol wondered why she’d bothered taking the tissue after all. </p><p>“It’s so good talking to you, Carol. You always make me feel better,” Myra said, smiling.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
**</p><p> </p><p>Carol took the subway every weekday morning at 8am. </p><p>The commute was a horrid, crushed affair but she allowed herself a chance to indulge in her favourite guilty pleasure while she waited for her stop. She scrolled through gossip sites, digging into the details of Beverly Marsh’s nasty divorce and the rumors circulating regarding the abrupt cancellation of <em> The Attic Room </em> even though filming had already been underway. </p><p>Then she refreshed the page and gaped in shock at the headline which awaited her. </p><p>
  <span class="u"> <strong>RICHIE TOZIER’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: RED HOT LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIED MAN! </strong> </span>
</p><p>And there was a picture of Richie Tozier looking decidedly less dishevelled than she remembered him, walking arm in arm with a man Carol thought she could pick out from a lineup even with her eyes closed. </p><p>It was Eddie Kaspbrak. </p><p>Shockingly the first thought that crossed her mind was ‘<em> good for him </em>’. </p><p>Carol shook her head. </p><p>It wasn’t good for him. Eddie was a liar, apparently a cheater and he’d hurt Myra deeply. It didn’t matter that he’d been cheating with another man. This was New York for Heaven’s sake. Eddie should have accepted himself years ago. It was the wrong decade for her to be understanding about his late-in-life sexuality crisis. </p><p>Myra had put her life on hold and cared for him like a mother and all Eddie had done was use her. </p><p>Carol shouldn’t be feeling any ounce of sympathy for him, certainly not because she was finally seeing a picture of him smiling. </p><p>He was, actually, quite an attractive man. </p><p>An attractive man who had broken her friend’s heart. </p><p>Angrily, Carol clicked on the link and read the article breathlessly. </p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>Carol Franklin met Eddie Kaspbrak in the flesh for the first time on a Wednesday morning. </p><p>He marched into the office, then deflated seeing that his wife wasn’t at her desk. </p><p>“I thought Myra worked Wednesdays,” he said. </p><p>Carol stood up. </p><p>“She called in sick,” she said, eyeing him carefully. </p><p>She would call security if she had to, but she rather doubted it. Eddie Kaspbrak was shorter than she was and Carol carried pepper spray in her bag. </p><p>Eddie laughed; a strained, slightly hysterical sound. </p><p>“She wasn’t at the house,” he said, running a hand distractedly through his hair. “I know she’s avoiding me but this isn’t fair! She can’t just drag Richie into this!” </p><p>He looked like he might start to cry. </p><p>Carol picked up the box tissues and offered him one. </p><p>“Thank you,” Eddie said. He took one of the tissues and crumpled it up in his fist. </p><p>“I would have given her anything she asked for,” he said wretchedly. “The house, the cars! I don’t care. I wouldn’t have fought her on any of it.” </p><p>Carol gripped the box of tissues tightly in her hands. </p><p>She didn’t like it when men yelled, but Eddie Kaspbrak wasn’t yelling. </p><p>He spoke quickly, determinedly, sucking in great gulps of air to carry him through. He’d clearly prepared a whole speech and he seemed hell-bent on delivering it, even if Carol was the only one available to hear it. </p><p>She thought about Myra smiling up at her when Carol had asked her about a prenup. </p><p>Maybe Carol deserved to hear whatever Eddie Kaspbrak needed to say. </p><p>She’d played her part in this, however incidental it was. She’d put the idea into Myra’s head. Carol was sure of that now. It hadn’t been her intention, but that was what she’d done. </p><p>Carol had encouraged her to think about herself, and Myra had called the papers and tipped them off to her husband’s love affair with a supposedly straight famous man. </p><p>“I know I hurt her, I know I did, but I begged her not to bring Richie into this. He doesn’t deserve any of this. It wasn’t his fault!” Eddie broke off. </p><p>He looked at Carol, his eyes wide and huge in his pale face.</p><p>“I know what she did,” Carol said softly. “I know she outed him.” </p><p>The sound Eddie made was something like a whine, so pained that Carol felt as if she’d kicked him. </p><p>“I love him,” Eddie said and now he was crying. “I love him so much. I didn’t even know love could feel like this. I didn’t remember until I saw Richie again.” </p><p>Carol moved around her desk. Hesitantly, uncertainly, she offered out her arms. </p><p>Eddie, equally hesitantly, let her encircle him. He was stiff when she hugged him, someone unused to comfort, unused to touch. </p><p>Carol thought she knew everything about Eddie Kaspbrak, but now she realised he was a stranger to her. </p><p>She hadn’t realised he could be passionate like this. She’d never imagined he could care about anything. </p><p>“I’m so sorry,” she whispered fiercely. “I’m so sorry she did this.” </p><p>“It’s my fault,” Eddie said, his fire having gone as his tears came. “I pushed her to do this. I hurt her.” </p><p>Carol felt her stomach lurch. </p><p>“I should have gone to counselling like she wanted. I should have tried. Shouldn’t I have tried? I married her! I made a commitment!” Eddie continued, the words coming out thick and fast, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. </p><p>“Eddie,” Carol said very gently. “You’re gay and in love with another man. You can’t change that.”</p><p>Eddie sucked in a deep breath of air. </p><p>“I know, but I didn’t have to embarrass Myra like this, leaving her for Richie. I’m being selfish. I made her a promise and I should keep it.” </p><p>“Eddie, don’t you think you deserve to be happy?” Carol asked. </p><p>When she was a little girl, Carol’s mother had told her the true meaning of marriage was devotion. </p><p>She’d waited on Carol’s father hand and foot. That man had never lifted a finger when he was home. He’d never changed diapers or driven a school run. He’d never cooked a meal or washed a dish. His wishes had been commands. The whole family revolved around him. </p><p>Her father had never been grateful for any of it. He took it as his due. He never said thank you. He told her she was looking old, looking frumpy, growing fat. </p><p>Carol had watched her mother work herself to the bone trying to please him, only to receive his casual cruelty in return. </p><p>Carol’s mother had never been happy. Her marriage had been a cage, one she thought she belonged in, one she called home. </p><p>She looked at Eddie - haggard and pale, shivering as she held him - and realised that Eddie was like her mother had been. </p><p>He was trying to please someone who could never be pleased, trying to placate a dragon to keep it from eating him.  </p><p>“I just don’t want her to hurt Richie,” Eddie said. </p><p>“And what does Richie want?” </p><p>Eddie looked up at her. </p><p>“Me,” he said breathlessly. “He said he just wants me.”</p><p>He looked dazed, blind-sided by the love he didn’t think he deserved. </p><p>A love he’d come here to defend. </p><p>Carol couldn’t be certain what Eddie had been planning - if he’d been planning to tell Myra he would fight her in court, that her actions would make their divorce long and painful, or if he’d been planning to fall on his sword and go back to a miserable marriage as long as she left Richie alone, but it was clear to her that whatever Eddie would have done, he would have done it out of love. </p><p>She’d never imagined him capable of passion, but the man standing in front of her now was overflowing with emotions, not bottled down, not repressed and quiet in the way she’d always pictured him to be. He wasn’t the frail, delicate thing his wife had made him into. </p><p>Carol wanted to help him. She wanted it the same way she’d wanted to help her mother, wanted to take his hand and walk him out of the shadowed half-life he’d been existing in, wanted him to realise his own worth and not let himself be beaten down any longer. </p><p>She was a stranger to him, but Carol thought the kindness of strangers could still be helpful in some way.</p><p>“You can’t change what Myra’s done,” She said, drawing a line in the proverbial sand, one she didn’t want Eddie to try to erase. “She did it to punish you, to hit you where it hurts. She wanted you to scuttle back to her with your tail between your legs.” </p><p>Eddie huffed. </p><p>“I don’t scuttle,” he said but Carol knew she’d hit the mark.</p><p>“This isn’t the first time she’s done something like this, is it?,” she asked, eyeing him knowingly. “It’s just the first time it’s been this explosive, right? It’s the first time there’s been someone else involved?</p><p>Eddie looked away, but he nodded slowly. </p><p>“I tried to leave her before. I’ve tried a couple of times,” he said quietly. “She’d wait around outside my work or she’d find the hotel I was staying in. I’d always go back in the end. She said I couldn’t live without her.” </p><p>Myra had said those words a hundred times in Carol’s hearing, but Carol had never really thought about them before. </p><p>She’d taken Myra at her word that Eddie’s life was a pathetic existence. She’d let Myra paint her a picture of an invalid whose life would be nothing without his saintly, perfect wife to care for him. In her mind, Carol had compared Eddie to her cat, a pampered house pet who wouldn’t be able to fend for himself out in the wide world, who needed someone else to open the wet food pouches for him. </p><p>She’d thought of Eddie as a burden, not a living breathing person. </p><p>She believed what Myra wanted her to believe, that Eddie needed Myra to survive, and she realised, going cold all over, that she would have continued to believe that if Eddie had died. </p><p>Myra had manipulated her. She’d done it cleanly and easily, and Carol would have continued to believe her lies blindly if Myra hadn’t gone too far and publicly outed Richie Tozier. </p><p>“Don’t go back,” she said. </p><p>“I don’t want to,” Eddie said, shaking his head firmly. </p><p>“She’s already done her worst,” Carol said with confidence. “She’s outed you, she’s outed Richie and it didn’t change anything. Richie still wants to be with you, you still want to be with him. Myra doesn’t get you back this time. You get to live your life on your terms.” </p><p>Eddie blinked at her, startled. She wondered if anyone had ever told him that his life was supposed to be his own. </p><p>“I do,” he agreed, a smile breaking out across his handsome face. </p><p>It was only then he seemed to realise he’d been having a breakdown in the arms of a perfect stranger. </p><p>“I don’t even know your name,” he said bewildered. </p><p>“It’s Carol,” said Carol, before she hugged him very tight. </p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>Myra never came back to work.</p><p>Carol was secretly glad about that. </p><p>She interviewed for a replacement and found a very nice girl who lived in an apartment with three roommates and a dog. She liked to dress the dog in funny hats. Carol enjoyed their shared lunch breaks a lot. They talked exclusively about work and about their pets. Love lives never entered into it and Carol was delighted about that. </p><p>She never saw Eddie Kaspbrak again, not in person, although he wasn’t Eddie Kaspbrak anymore. He was Eddie Tozier now. </p><p>She saw him in magazines, on gossip websites and memorably once on TV, shyly hugging his husband from behind as Richie answered questions at a red carpet event. </p><p>He looked happy in the life he chose.  </p><p>‘<em> Good for him </em>’ Carol thought, and when she thought that now, she thought it with a smile on her face. </p>
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